Labor calls for fines as truancy rates rise
School attendance rates have fallen, sparking new calls for on-the-spot fines for parents of chronic truants.
Education
Don't miss out on the headlines from Education. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- What to do when your kid won’t go to school
- Check out these subscriber-only specials, giveaways and prizes
Falling school attendance has reignited political debate over the need for on-the-spot fines of hundreds of dollars for parents of chronic truants.
Figures show the proportion of students who show up for school at least nine out of every 10 days, known as the “attendance level”, has fallen both in South Australia and nationally over recent years.
In light of overall enrolments, small percentage shifts translate to thousands of students locally, and tens of thousands nationally.
From 2016-19, the drop in SA for Years 1-6 students was more than 2 per cent to 73.7. Across Australia, there was a 3 per cent decline to 75.3.
The numbers, in a Productivity Commission report released this week, were worse for Years 7-10. Again they were down more than 2 per cent in SA to 64.9, and nationally more than 4 per cent to 63.8.
In SA, 10 days absence in a term is considered, “chronic non-attendance”, triggering investigation into the cause. Labor’s assistant education spokesman Blair Boyer said attendance was “down from Labor’s time in government, across the board”.
“Labor proposed expiation notices for parents whose children were chronically absent from school to give schools a fast and effective way to make the families pay attention to getting their kids to school,” he said.
“But the Marshall Liberal Government opposed that policy and offered no alternative.”
Parent groups and the Australian Education Union had opposed on-the-spot fines. Labor’s plan had allowed for expiations up to $750, though they were likely to have been set at $315.
Mr Boyer said they would have been used only “after other mechanisms had failed – support, counselling etc – and prior to prosecution”.
The change of government in 2018 passed the baton to the Liberals for sweeping reform to education laws, finally passed last August.
Those laws, which will come into effect later this year, raise the top penalty from $500 to $5000, but that can be enforced only with court action.
The laws will make successful prosecutions more likely, which is why the Government is yet to initiate any.
Mr Gardner said the Government had raised the number of truancy officers from 22 to 33, while its bullying strategy announced last year would also help address absenteeism.
He said “parking fine-style expiation notices” would have been an “insubstantial” deterrent and “a real roadblock to getting to the root cause of why children weren’t attending”.
He was ”very optimistic” the Government’s approach of “family conferences” (bringing together families, principals, police and other agencies) plus the threat of much larger penalties in the event of court action, would give families a “very strong incentive … to pull their finger out.”